So, just when we figured Danny had pushed his luck far enough with leaving us by ourselves in the hell-hole hotel, he announced that he was going further abroad into China to do some more paperwork related to the old house, and left us to fend again.

Normally, I’m quite happy to have alone time with the girls, but when no one in the city speaks a word of English, and there is no English on signs or menus, that becomes a challenge.  Add to that the crazy-ass traffic in this little city and you find us hotel bound.

Speaking of traffic.  Jiujiang is not for the faint of heart.  There are literally NO rules of the road, except that the bigger your vehicle is, the more right of way you get.  They drive on either side of the road, they use their horns constantly, and they completely ignore traffic lights even where they do exist (and they don’t exist in many places.)  I spent quite a long time watching the traffic outside the hotel, in awe that I didn’t witness a fatality.  China does, though, have the highest traffic fatality rate in the world for a reason.  You can see in the photos that sometimes a family of five is riding on a motor scooter.  Other times you can see a farm implement that has been modified and is being driven on the road, in the middle of all that, you get huge transport trucks, very over-loaded, and many people on bicycles.  It really is awfully stressful to watch. 

So, in case that wasn’t bad enough, no one wears seatbelts in this chaos.  You wouldn’t want them to use one of the safety features of the cars, right??   In fact, get this, they actually buy these cute little seatbelt “fakers”.  See the photo?  Mickey Mouse is being exploited!  They put the faker into the seatbelt receiver so that the dumb car doesn’t beep to remind them to wear their seatbelt.  For real.  For sale.  In China.

While Danny was out, his cousin’s wife had offered to take me and the girls shopping.  Everything is very cheap here in Jiujiang, so it makes it fun.  We didn’t actually buy too much, but Stephanie did buy the very fancy pink blouse you can see in the photos!  It was 25 yuan (about $3 CDN) so even though I think it’s hideous, she’s happy for $3, so who am I to complain.

Lunch had been arranged at Danny’s cousin’s house.  While it was really nice of them to offer, their house has no air conditioning and only a squat toilet.  Oh yeah, and a big wild dog.  And no refrigerated drinks.  Better and better eh?  Actually the food was really nice, and Danny and his cousin had returned so after we all had lunch, it was back to the hotel.  We only had a little time before Danny was yet again taking off with his cousin to some office or another.

Me and the girls walked around to the shops near the hotel, and they found these funny “Barbie” type dolls.  They were cheap as dirt, and the girls were really happy with them, so we got them.

More hours to kill in the hotel room, with the girls playing with their new dolls, and watching the iPads, and playing cards.